“Good-bye, then. Good-bye, Miss Ellen,” cried he, aloud. “It's not my fault that I 'm not a favorite with you;” and thus saying, he snatched his hat, and was down the stairs and out of the house before Bramleigh could utter a word.
“What a kind-hearted fellow it is!” said he, as he joined his sister. “I must tell you what he called me aside for.”
She listened quietly while he recounted what had just occurred, and then said,—
“The Gospel tells us it's hard for rich men to get to heaven; but it's scarcely less hard for them to see what there is good here below! So long as we were well off I could see nothing to like in that man.”
“That was my own thought a few minutes back; so you see, Nelly, we are not only travelling the same road, but gaining the same experiences.”
“Sedley says in this letter here,” said Augustus, the next morning, as he entered the breakfast-room, “that Pracontal's lawyer is perfectly satisfied with the honesty of our intentions, and we shall go to trial in the November term on the ejectment case. It will raise the whole question, and the law shall decide between us.”
“And what becomes of that—that arrangement,” said she, hesitatingly, “by which M. Pracontal consented to withdraw his claim?”
“It was made against my consent, and I have refused to adhere to it. I have told Sedley so, and told him that I shall hold him responsible to the amount disbursed.”
“But, dear Gusty, remember how much to your advantage that settlement would have been.”
“I only remember the shame I felt on hearing of it, and my sorrow that Sedley should have thought my acceptance of it possible.”